


A Valediction

by ChippewaFalls



Series: Reasons [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Drabble Collection, F/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28157622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChippewaFalls/pseuds/ChippewaFalls
Summary: Regulus Black lamenting life as a death eater and processing his choice to turn traitor.
Relationships: Regulus Black/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Reasons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062869
Kudos: 3





	1. Apathy

**APATHY**

  
  
If there’s a quality one could acquire to endure life as a death eater, I suggest it be apathy.

You think it would be hate. To sow such chaos, to torture and to take lives as we do. 

And don’t misunderstand me, hate helps. 

But hate requires too much effort and still carries guilt along behind it. 

Emptiness is more sustainable than disdain.

Simply carve out your emotions and replace them with the echoes of nihilism. Hollow out anything that could lead to connection and learn to love isolation.

And once your concern for others and your apprehension for your own wellbeing is diminished, there aren’t many orders you won’t follow.

And that’s what it’s all about in the end. 


	2. Blood

**BLOOD  
  
**  
Blood doesn’t just stain your cloak, it stains your lineage. 

And there’s nothing you can do to change it. No tonic or cure to rid yourself of what others despise. 

The fault does not lay with you, but the struggle will be yours to endure. 

A lifetime sentence, that even death cannot erase.

The irony, then, that we kill with curses. 

That the pleasure taken by my more impassioned comrades is in torturing minds and souls rather than flesh.

Is it purposely done, I wonder?

To keep the truth at a safe enough distance to maintain our prejudice.

Because our blood all looks the same.


	3. Corpse

**CORPSE  
  
**  
They lay there. 

Still. Silent. Staring.

All possibilities ended. Opportunities squandered. Hope withered away.

They are always so sickly pale and their skin cold to the touch. 

When I close my eyes I see theirs open and glaring, forever watching my choices. 

They are laid to rest forever and, in doing, have taken away any chance that I might sleep well again.

And still, though I can now conjure their image without reference, I watch them from time to time.

Wondering how we differ.

Feeling more a part of their world than my own.

Sensing the only difference between us is time.


	4. Death

**DEATH**  
  
  
His efforts to conquer it has been formidable. 

His fear of it is palpable. 

But to me, death was an old acquaintance. 

Someone you’d think of from time to time with a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. Knowing there was more to them then you yet knew, but still finding comfort in their shallow familiarity. 

It’s a song that you heard some time ago and suddenly find yourself humming, though the words escape you. 

Death is inevitable. 

Death is inevitable for all of us. Purebloods, mudbloods, muggles and squibs.

Death does not discriminate. 

Perhaps that’s why it angered Him so fiercely.


	5. Epiphany

**EPIPHANY**

  
I lay awake each night with rest just out of reach. 

Instead of sleep, my eyes close and I attempt to pull something from deep within. 

  
I endeavor to reconcile what I’ve seen and what I’ve done with who I am and what I’ve become.

And it’s so close, like a breeze that brushes past one moment and slips through your fingers the next. Some epiphany that would make sense of it all. 

  
I was promised freedom and then given orders.

  
I was lured in by the promise of power and instead am helpless to alter my circumstance.

Even the worst my imagination can bring in sleep is a relief.

Compared to the nightmare I face awake each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by the song of the same title by Taylor Swift


	6. Fate

**FATE**

I do not believe in fate. 

What a cruel world this would be were it our compass, for there’s no justice to be found in kismet.

There would be no weight to choice were it all up to providence. No purpose in wanting or seeking for no amount of effort could affect the outcome.

  
Too many pour themselves a glass of liquor and wonder why their vision is blurred. They get drunk on suffering and can’t then be satisfied with peace. 

No, I put my faith in choices and suffer the consequences, for they were earned. 

The guilty are doomed to walk through fire, but only some of us will burn.


	7. Guilty

**GUILTY**

That was my sentence the moment I agreed to follow Him.

No matter the efforts I take to defeat the Dark Lord from this point forward, guilty will be how the wizarding world writes my story. 

And there is justice in that. 

I have done deplorable things. I have watched and allowed repulsive things. 

There should be no forgiveness. There should be no redemption.

What I do next is not in effort for absolution.

I have taken lives. 

Tonight I will take one of his. 

But His blood on my hands does not wash away the blood of others.

Being the adversary of a villain does not make one a hero.


	8. Harbinger

**HARBINGER**

Those around me talk of ravens as harbingers of sorrow. 

And I suppose that’s what Mina brought with her.

I knew from the moment our eyes met that she would not just be by undoing - she’d be the end of us all. 

But it didn’t have to be that way. 

If those around me paid attention to their studies they’d know that ravens are not omens of death. They are holders of secrets and guides for the lost.

My Mina flew between the Dark Lord and The Order carrying deception on her wings, yet was never seen as more than a scavenger. 

How blind we are, to our own destruction.


	9. Intentions

**INTENTIONS**

  
  
I did not plan to bring about His demise.

Not until He came for hers. 

Misplaced wrath that will be His ruin. Either by my hand or another's for this hatred is not sustainable momentum. 

Eventually, more will need rest from His vitriol and, in that moment of respite, see the truth of His efforts. 

And in understanding His true intentions they will come to understand that what they are to Him is expendable. 

These poor souls who sought purpose and importance will never be anything but a means to an end. And most will meet their end without finding the former and ever feeling the latter.


	10. Jaded

**JADED**

  
You don’t get into this following without having grudges to hold.

Against those who have hurt you. Against those who have cheated you. Against those who have left you to fend for yourself.

Whatever the cause, whatever the chip on your shoulder, be certain it stays pinned to your heart with every decision made. 

For when something comes to warm the coldness in your soul all conviction to follow His lead slips into the jaded edges of your being.

The once sharpened borders are made dull with apathy and any sense of eagerness and enthusiasm fade.

And people become another curse shot through the air. Another order to be followed. Another corpse you’ve left laying in the dirt.


	11. Kinship

**KINSHIP**

  
They are the reason you have been put into this storm to begin with.

After all, you did not ask to be trained in their ways or brought up in their hate. 

But they are your blood and that earns them your loyalty. 

And I’ve been told there’s nothing stronger than blood-ties, but I wonder the scope of these bonds. The distance this loyalty extends out to.

  
Because there are those who have truly earned your fealty. Those whose bonds are not in the blood between them, but that which you’ve spilt together. 

It’s a kinship of guilt. An alliance forged in grief.


	12. Love

**LOVE**

It seems more precious when it’s a secret you whisper to one another in the dark. When the world’s judgements are kept silent and only your affections can be heard. 

We pretended to be strangers in marble floored ballrooms and stole glances across the gardens. 

  
  
Fondness was a weakness to be exploited. Attachment meant knowing you had something to lose. Love, then, was taught to be a useless endeavor.

So she became my first taste of rebellion. Stirring a revolution deep in my soul that overthrew all I thought I understood. 

She was an insurrection of my apathetic heart that demanded I feel again.


	13. Mark

**MARK**

  
How I despise this brand on my skin. 

This ink that marks me as belonging to something other than my own will.

To see it dance on my forearm. Chastising me, summoning me, reminding me of my limitations.

  
  
Darker still is the stain it has placed on my soul.

His efforts have twisted my beliefs and defaced my own desires to His.

There will be no removing the fault. It has blackened my heart and I will carry it with me unto death, maybe further. 

My past crimes will not be censored by my attempts to rectify them. 

But I seek to amend all the same. 


	14. Negligible

**NEGLIGIBLE  
  
**

We have put everything of ourselves into this fight. Our entire existence is meant to forward His aims.

Yet our contributions will be negligible in the end.

  
  
Moving His cause one step forward out of thousands He intends to take.

My betrayal may be equally as underwhelming. Bringing forth no more change than my deference.

  
  
Yet I push forward knowing the necessity in my attempt.

For if I fail another will take me place. And another after that. 

I face the end not in despair of what little I have achieved, but in the opportunity I may grant those who follow after.


	15. Obedience

**OBEDIENCE**

Freedom He promised us, but what He gave was orders.

He rattled on about the power we would obtain and those we would subjugate with it. 

But we were initially oppressed. 

Losing our voices first, as we conformed to His language. 

Our thoughts next, after swearing allegiance to His way of thinking.

Finally surrendering our own freedoms, as we gave up our ability to choose. 

Now I hunt down those He fears. I curse those He believes deserves the torture. 

I no longer have need of introspection or indecision.

I simply answer the beckoning call of a snake on my forearm.


	16. Paranoia

**PARANOIA  
  
**

There isn’t quite a string of words I could put together to express how powerful you feel when taking someone’s life. To know you hold their fate. To see the helplessness in their eyes.

  
  
But it’s a capricious high. 

A display of our world’s wry disposition.

For when you realize the simplicity in ending life you carry that knowledge with you in every step forward. 

  
  
The fragility of our existence perpetuates the paranoia in your mind and turns everyone into an enemy. Our world becomes an endless barrage of possible threats and foreboding omens. 

You don’t kill again to chase the high, but to run from death’s whispers.

Yet with every life silenced, death grows louder.


	17. Qualm

**QUALM**   
  


It sits there in the back of your mind and mutters in a never ending cacophony of possibilities. 

What ifs and could be’s that make your heart race and your mind blank of all encouraging words. 

Light seems distant and the air feels chilled. 

Doubt nags at your certainties and disputes their sovereignty.

Every glance, every silence, every hesitation becomes evidence in the case against those once irrefutable facts and you are left to question if you are even standing on solid ground.

One qualm is all it takes to dismantle a conviction. 

One rogue is all it takes to disassemble an empire.


	18. Reckoning

**RECKONING**   
  


I have made too many mistakes to expect redemption.

Too long I supported His immoral cause without question to presume justice would be found in my favor. 

A reckoning is waiting for me on the other side of this mission. A deserved end for the misery I leave in my wake. 

I walk this path as a mirage of the man I could have been. The hero she should have loved, not the villain she died for. 

My palms are dripping with their blood and there is only one way to wash them clean.

I know I must give my life, if I’m ever to find my soul.


	19. Splintered

**SPLINTERED**   
  


That is how she described Him. 

Scattered into many pieces that were meant to keep His singular self alive.

It was magic darker than any I had thought to learn. Desperation thicker than any I had thought possessable. 

To splinter your soul into disparate portions. To sequester parts of you through the last breaths of those you silenced.

I thought, then, of my own soul. Of the broken fragments I believed too small to ever reassemble.

But my splinters were not scattered to the wind or hidden away. They were still mine to do with what I would. 

And in that moment, I chose to mend them.


	20. Traitor

**TRAITOR**

I would be labeled a traitor for the decision I was to make. To both sides.

Were I to survive there would be no place for me in this world to return to. 

Her arms were not open, waiting for my return; they were crossed over her chest while she lay in her grave.

My brother had long since forgotten our relation and no doubt disassociated from me at every opportunity. 

My parents would burn my face from the wall in the lounge. Erasing me from their lineage and their legacy.

There would be nowhere to belong should I return. 

What comfort then, that a return is so unlikely.


	21. Unconditional

**UNCONDITIONAL**

  
It was the kind of faith He demanded, but would never truly get. 

It was the love I never deserved, yet was granted anyways.

Perhaps that’s what he was after all along and simply lacked the awareness to seek it properly. 

His disappointment in his followers makes more sense in this context; gaining sycophants out for their own eternal glory instead of devoting themselves to achieving His.

He sought power in an endless cycle for it could never be enough. 

She was enough for me. She saw me in all of my brokenness and failures and loved me still.

And suddenly I did not need anything from Him anymore.


	22. Valediction

**VALEDICTION**   
  


It kept me up for a fortnight. 

Wondering why she had done what she had done. 

Standing before the Dark Lord. Taunting Him as she exposed His true plans to the forest of followers watching on. 

The information she carried must have been dire. Her duplicity must have been compromised. 

Even still, why not challenge Him without His numbers so close - at least then she could have stood a chance in combat. 

But I finally found rest near a month later. Realizing her last words were not simply a taunt towards a villain she despised, but a valediction to the one she loved.


	23. Words

**WORDS  
  
**

I have not cried tears in near a decade now. Instead, my sorrow pours out in words. In whispers and sighs we tell one another as we languish in the darkness of our hideaway.

We promise to leave this chaos behind us. To find a cottage somewhere up in the highlands and live out a quiet existence.

We tease each other with careers that don’t require a life sentence and families that don’t expect blind allegiance.

  
  
We vow to never keep secrets. We say we’ll never tell a lie. We pledge to never leave one another to this maelstrom. 

But they’re just words. 

And words are somehow more useless than tears.


	24. Xenophobia

**XENOPHOBIA**

  
Hate helps us to internalize our fears and rationalize our sense of entitlement.

It is like a ladder made of other people. Every step up it takes, it pushes another down. 

And it is not easy on the heart to do such cruelty to another so similar to one's own. We see ourselves reflected in them and do not want ourselves to be crushed.

Hate is used, in these circumstances, to shield us from their humanity. 

We set them apart. We create an us in order to manufacture a them.

We make them an other.

And we climb the ladder.


	25. Youth

**YOUTH**   
  


The irony.

That He seeks never-ending life and will be ruined by youth.

It would have to be that way. Those who carried years of experience also carried decades of disappointment. At a certain age one learns the inevitability of failure.

The constant threat of defeat and its consequences; that’s when the fighting stops.

But we have not yet seen that darkness.

Our young souls still believe in the invincibility of purpose. In some sort of cosmic balance the world seeks to steady itself.

We are naïve enough to believe in the hope of victory.

And He is old enough to understand the threat hope carries.


	26. Zealot

**ZEALOT  
**

  
I have heard that there is a point of no return. 

Some place on the scale of your morality or dignity that can no longer hold balance and tips.

I once thought my actions in following Him had led to such a point and that my soul was forever doomed to its fate.

She brought back the balance and, after fanning the ember of hope deep in the darkest parts of me, the scales tipped further the opposite direction.

  
Nothing was going to stand in my path moving forward. Nothing would bring back the balance again. I was now forever impassioned to end His tyranny.


End file.
